Judgement is coming to the west!

 Wait, I mean the game. Not... whatever else that could mean...

Now whilst that may sound the like the ominous ultimatum uttered by a particular rotund Asian autocrat, it's actually a statement of gaming fact. Judgement, the side-game from the series Ryū Ga Gotoku which has enjoyed exclusivity on Playstation, is coming to the rest of us in the near future! Now, I must admit, to call it 'coming to the west' is a tad misleading, PS4 players could play the title if they wanted, but it came without any English audio track and was just really swept under the rug for Yakuza 6: Song of Life, which also came out that year. This time around, however, the game is getting sent directly to Xbox Series X and Playstation 5, complete with advanced visuals and... honestly probably still no English audio track. (This studio is really inconsistent about them.) So do you notice anything missing about that announcement? Anything particularly eyebrow raising? Where's my damn PC announcement, Bruce?

What year are we living in? I have to ask that more and more because I cannot fathom what would possess these developers to forsake PC, again. It makes no sense. Commonly, in the old days, there was a clear distinction for the sort of game which was fit for the PC market and what would work better on consoles. Strategy which required slow paced gameplay, that's PC. Faster paced action games with lots of explosions and unpacked sound files in general? Console, no doubt. 100 hour RPGs? Also console, for some inexplicable reason. Within those bias', I can almost forgive keeping Yakuza as a console game. But the market has grown since then, morphed to the point where that line in the sand doesn't exist anymore, if indeed it ever did. From Software are selling each of their, non PS exclusive, latest entries on PC nowdays. That's From Software we're talking about. Heck, if I were them I'd never trust PC again after that botch of a Dark Souls 1 PC port. But we've put that pain behind us and moved onto more enlightened times. (For the most part. I'm still bitter.) What makes this especially galling, the part that really kicks me in the nuts, is the fact that Judgement is also coming to Stadia.

Didn't I just talk about you, Stadia? Can't stay out of the crosshairs for a single minute, huh? You're so eager to rile me up that you actively go after the one thing that I love in this world? Over-the-top Japanese Crime Dramas!? Very well then, but if there's one thing that Kuse taught me, it's that as long as you're alive you haven't lost yet. And something tells me that we won't be able to say that about both of us for much longer, now will we? So laugh it up, nick your PC exclusives, wave that phallus around, but do so in the knowledge that with every purchase met with a response that fails to justify the price, you're only hastening your demise. The light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long. And the blaze which flounders about desperately, eager but unable to find any robust fuel, burns even shorter. You have floundered for so very long, Stadia. Keep your 'Judgement' for as long as the exclusivity has bought you, but remember, You're not the only one with a dragon on his back, boy.

But seriously, what the heck? I was under the impression that the base game which Stadia would stream around the world as part of it's business model would be based off of PC versions. Am I wrong to assume that? Admittedly, I might be because Stadia is such an waste of time that I try actively to erase all knowledge of it, and how it works, from my immediate knowledge base. But if I'm not, that means Stadia has, inexplicably, managed to stifle a dedicated PC launch in favour of their service being the only way to play on PC. And RGG Studio went along with it? Why? Doesn't everyone watch the same industry news? Don't you see the failing numbers, the shutting down of studios, the pimping of their patented tech? This is a sinking ship and you, RGG, are courting with them! Leave the damned to their damned fate, it's not as though it wasn't bought upon themselves anyway!

But alas, what even is Judgement, I hear you ask. Well, imagine Yakuza, but this time on the side of the law, alongside the enforcement agents who oh-so-often go ignored in the franchise. You know, the same guys who are pretty much just the perpetual puppets of anyone in power for the time, who have such a low barrier to buy-out it seems that every two-bit family in Kamurocho has them in their pockets? Well I wonder what their story is? Judgement follows one detective on the search for a Serial killer in the mean streets of Tokyo, and aside from that has a lot of the staples on would expect from the franchise. Constant street fights, heat actions and a fully playable version of one of the Virtua Fighters built into the arcade. It's a Yakuza title like any other, only without the slight pangs of "Am I the badguy in this situation?" (All of which are immediately quenched once you realise, "Oh, of course not. Kiryu and Majima have never killed anyone. Ever.")

This is the first actual example of that exact wave I anticipated, the wave of Yakuza content becoming more available to the wider gaming world! For so very long Yakuza was a niche franchise that those who played it liked, but which could never cut it with the big leagues. Now it's a headliner for the new generation, with new people coming to it every single year. The masterpiece that is Yakuza 0 stands as the gateway drug, but we're slowly getting a whole pharmacies worth of new entries to be really hooked on. 3-5 are getting remasters, 6 and 7 are already widely available. All we need now is a remaster and rerelease of 'Dead Souls' and a full localisation of 'Ryū ga Gotoku Ishin' and there'll finally be parity across the Yakuza fandom. Then we can all gather and do the Samurai Ondo together!

And yet, somehow the celebrations don't feel yet warranted given the situation with the PC. I may have voiced this before, and perhaps you're getting tired of hearing it, but there's almost no reason for a staggered PC/console launch in today's age unless we're talking about a product that literally would require from-the-ground rebuilding like Red Dead Redemption 1. (In that case, I can understand Rockstar declaring it not worth the effort) Yakuza was given a whole new lease on life partially because of it's Steam release, and the games are still heavily enjoyed on the PC platform according to charts. Maybe it's stupid, given everything we've seen these past years, to be surprised when something so obvious escapes the attention of those in charge, but let me try anyway; You have an avid PC audience who will throw money at you. Just accept that money.

Still, I suppose I should count my lucky stars that Judgement is coming at all. Though the game might not have much of a bearing on the overall narrative, I hardly think that's an issue in a franchise as wacky as Yakuza, I'm just in it for the experience to be honest. But if I can't have my Final Fantasy games on the year in which they come out, (still waiting on FF7R's PC launch) I'd at least hope for RGG to throw me a bone. (I'm starved out here!) Still, given that there's literally 3 Yakuza games about to hit in a few months, I suppose I can forgive the team for the time being. I just hope they really take this into account for the future, no one wants to wait for games to come out on their hardware because of dumb backroom industry politics. Keep that crap in the boardrooms, let your players play.